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Students of high school or university psychology classes are probably familiar with the Stanford Prison Experiment. Run in 1971 at the behest of the U.S. Navy, the experiment intended to investigate the cause of conflict between guards and prisoners in military correctional facilities. Dr. Philip Zimbardo and his team chose 24 male Stanford students and divvied them up into guards and prisoners. Turning the basement of one of the student halls into a makeshift prison, Zimbardo placed his subjects under surveillance and watched as the prisoners became passive and the guards exhibited authority by way of sometimes sadistic psychological torture. Zimbardo ended the experiment 6 days into its 2-week run, mostly due to the objections of his fiancée. She felt Zimbardo had become an unhealthy part of his own experiment.

A documentary about this could potentially be fascinating, as some of the actual experiment exists on film. Unfortunately, “The Stanford Prison Experiment” is a dramatization, and no matter how much it may adhere to the well-documented specifics of Zimbardo’s work, it is a massive failure. It prefers to abstract the experiment from any psychological theories or details, opting instead to merely harp on endless, repetitive scenes of prisoner abuse. One particular guard, who thinks he’s Strother Martin in “ Cool Hand Luke ,” abuses the prisoners. The prisoners take the abuse, rebelling once or twice before becoming passive. Zimbardo glares at a TV screen doing nothing while his guards break the rules of the contract everybody signed at the outset. Repeat ad nauseum.

These scenes are supposed to shock the viewer, but they did not work for me, because I just didn’t care. The film reduces the entire experiment to a Dead Teenager movie whose slasher just roughs them up. Prisoners are referred to by numbers in order to strip them of their personal identities, and the film keeps them at this level of distance. We never get to know any subject outside of brief sketches, so the victims become disposable. Despite the best efforts of the actors on both sides of the law, the film is completely clinical in its depiction, striking the same note for over 2 hours. It gets real dull, real fast.

I didn’t care because this isn’t remotely like an actual prison; it’s a bunch of privileged kids playing dress-up for $15 a day. Even a priest Zimbardo hires as a prison chaplain tells the doctor “it’s good that these privileged kids experience prison life.” The actual reasons for the experiment (and its military involvement) are never expressed in Tim Talbott ’s screenplay, so the priest’s comment almost serves as the reason for these tests. And the film takes great pains to tell us that nobody in the experiment suffered “long term psychological damage” after it was abruptly cancelled. I’m sure someone who has experienced the harsh realities of actual prison life would feel relieved that these young men weren’t scarred.

The best scene in “The Stanford Prison Experiment” deals with an actual prisoner and serves to highlight my disdain for how the film trades emotion and details for exploitative shocks. The fantastic Nelsan Ellis (last seen in “ Get On Up ”) plays Jesse, an ex-con brought in by Zimbardo’s team as an expert witness to their proceedings. At a mock parole board hearing, Jesse rips into an inmate, treating him as inhumanely as possible while verbally shredding the inmate’s explanation for why he should be paroled. After the stunned inmate is sent back to his cell, Jesse reveals that he was recreating his own parole board treatment. He tells Zimbardo that playing the role of his own tormentor “felt good, and I hated that it did.” This, in a nutshell, is what the actual experiment sought to explore, that is, the nature of even the nicest human beings to commit evil. Jesse’s revelation, and the psychological toll it takes on him, is more effective than anything else the film conjures up. If only the movie had spent more time interacting with the Strother Martin-wannabe’s own thoughts rather than trudging him out only for sadism.

The film reduces Zimbardo to some kind of megalomaniac who doesn’t know what he is doing. This makes his research seem half-assed and unethical. He watches the guards strike the prisoners (a direct violation of the rules) and the film paints him as the biggest villain of all. He challenges anyone who questions his methods and authority, and at one point, he absurdly sits in a hallway like a low-rent Charles Bronson hoping for the return of a subject who might jeopardize his research. (In the actual case, Zimbardo simply moves the prison to a location unknown by the subject.) And though his intentions are to “feminize” the prisoners by giving them “dresses” that barely hide their genitalia, “The Stanford Prison Experiment” implies that Zimbardo’s sole reason for stopping the experiment was the moment when his guards forced the inmates into a gay sex pantomime. Violence and hog-tying inmates were OK, but none of that gay stuff, the movie seems to say.

Billy Crudup deserves some kind of medal for his attempt to breathe life into his one dimensional character, as do actors like Ezra Miller and Olivia Thirlby . But they are undermined by a poor script, horror movie-style music and ripe dramatizations that exist solely to make the viewer feel superior. I despise movies like this and “ Compliance ” because they pretend to say something profound about their scenarios but are, at heart, cynically manipulative trash designed to make audiences pat themselves on the back for not being “like those people.” Had we been forced to identify with anyone, prisoner or guard, the film might have achieved the palpable discomfort of forcing us to look at ourselves. That was one of the goals of the actual Stanford Prison Experiment. This movie just wants to superficially disturb, and it’s not even successful at that.

Odie Henderson

Odie "Odienator" Henderson has spent over 33 years working in Information Technology. He runs the blogs Big Media Vandalism and Tales of Odienary Madness. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire  here .

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The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015)

Rated R for language including abusive behavior and some sexual references

122 minutes

Billy Crudup as Dr. Philip Zimbardo

Ezra Miller as Daniel Culp - Prisoner '8612'

Michael Angarano as Christopher Archer

Tye Sheridan as Peter Mitchell - Prisoner 819

Olivia Thirlby as Christina Zimbardo

Johnny Simmons as Jeff Jansen

Gaius Charles as Banks

James Wolk as Penny

Thomas Mann as Prisoner 416

Moisés Arias as Actor

Keir Gilchrist as John Lovett

Nelsan Ellis as Jesse Fletcher

• Kyle Patrick Alvarez
• Tim Talbott

Director of Photography

• Jas Shelton

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Review: ‘The Stanford Prison Experiment’ Revisits the Psychology of Power and Abuse

• Share full article

By Neil Genzlinger

• July 16, 2015

Fine ensemble acting brings a notorious psychological study to life in “The Stanford Prison Experiment.” The research, now 44 years old, may today seem as if it merely confirmed the obvious, but the film, by Kyle Patrick Alvarez, certainly makes you feel the claustrophobic intensity of what went on.

The film is about a 1971 study done by a Stanford University professor, Philip Zimbardo, in which students were recruited to play either guards or inmates in a make-believe prison. Guess what? People put in positions of authority, like prison guards, sometimes abuse that authority, and in startlingly cruel ways.

Anatomy | The Stanford Prison Experiment

In this anatomy of a scene, kyle patrick alvarez narrates a sequence from his film..

Billy Crudup, playing Dr. Zimbardo, is the most recognizable name in the cast, and he does nice work portraying a man who, as the experiment spirals out of control, is torn between protecting the students and protecting his research. But it’s the young actors playing the students who really make an impression.

Michael Angarano is downright terrifying as a guard who patterns his behavior after a particularly nasty character in the prison movie “Cool Hand Luke,” which had come out in 1967. The students playing prisoners adopt attitudes ranging from rebellious to meek, but none are immune to the brutal treatment of their overseers.

The experiment’s methodologies and meanings have been analyzed endlessly over the years, and the film doesn’t delve deeply into these interpretations and critiques. It doesn’t need to; this stark and riveting version of events speaks for itself.

“The Stanford Prison Experiment” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian) for language and intensity.

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The Stanford Prison Experiment Reviews

Chilling, impactful and utterly unforgettable, The Stanford Prison Experiment is an unmissable reminder that truth is always stranger - and more fascinating - than fiction.

Full Review | Oct 4, 2021

An outstanding cast and a compelling true story that outdoes Lord of the Flies in exploring how quickly humans can lose their humanity.

The Stanford Prison Experiment is an utterly gripping, chilling narrative...

It's an important film to watch for anyone interested in criminal justice, social justice or simply the psychology of roles.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 24, 2020

[Alvarez] does an excellent job encapsulating the intense, dehumanizing, and claustrophobic nature of the experiment. [July 10, 2018]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 22, 2019

Shelton's excellent cinematography goes a long way in keeping the claustrophobic, oppressive mood going, mainly by shooting the tight, cramped and dull office settings with a wide Cinemascope ratio.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 3, 2019

While it sometimes drags on in certain places and becomes repetitive in its showing of the actions taken by the guards, the film still stands well enough and is able to explore the ugly side of humanity that is very revealing.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 2, 2019

The Stanford Prison Experiment isn't so much a period thriller as it is a modern horror in '70s clothing, vividly confronting its audience with the depths the human soul can plunge to, given the right circumstances...

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 29, 2019

The Stanford Prison Experiment isn't fun, but it is engrossing, and it provides fodder for thought (and perhaps even self-reflection) a long time after it ends.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Dec 7, 2018

The reenactment is ugly and affecting, attention shifting from member to member among the excellent ensemble cast; Tim Talbott's script is streaked with an awareness of privilege that a lesser movie would have neglected.

Full Review | Aug 28, 2018

The uneven film ran out of gas way before it crossed the finishing line.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | May 1, 2018

The scariest part is that viewers vicariously become Dr. Philip Zimbardo, hotly anticipating what happens next before coming to their senses realizing how inhumane this is, how far it has gone, and that it needs to stop

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 3, 2017

The most fascinating parts of the film depict the experimenters themselves, who are equally quick to abuse the power they have given themselves over the lives of others.

Full Review | Oct 11, 2017

The Stanford Prison Experiment lives and dies by the quality of the performances, because there is very little else in the film.

Full Review | Oct 9, 2017

Authentically tense and sweatily claustrophobic.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 27, 2016

Crudup's Zimbardo shifts from ruthlessness to panic, but that shift isn't nearly as marked as what we observe among his subjects.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 9, 2016

Crudup excels as Zimbardo, casually sliding into the role of evil prison boss so subtly that we almost don't realize what's happening.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 14, 2016

Based on real events, this sharply well-made film shifts from a rather light-hearted comedy into a horrific thriller. And it feels unnervingly natural as it does so.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 17, 2016

Cranking up the tension by gradually moving his camera in closer and closer to his actors, Alvarez smartly shrinks the distance between them and us in order to intensify the what-would-you-do? discomfort the experiment was designed to explore.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 12, 2016

The film runs out of steam by about the half way mark, where matters of unequivocally passed through the gates of Hell.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 10, 2016

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The stanford prison experiment, common sense media reviewers.

Powerful depiction of shocking, harrowing real-life events.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

More of a cautionary tale than a positive message,

The characters are mainly victims, and most are su

Psychological abuse. Prisoners are forced to prete

Prisoner forced to strip. Naked bottom shown. Sexu

Uses of "f--k," "s--t," "bitch," "motherf----r," "

Frequent smoking. References to drinking and drugs

Parents need to know that The Stanford Prison Experiment is a drama based on a famous real-life 1971 psychological experiment in which college students took on the roles of either prison guards or prisoners. The material is very strong, with psychological abuse, fighting, beating with nightsticks, screaming…

Positive Messages

More of a cautionary tale than a positive message, the movie warns about abuse of power and attitudes toward authority. Nobody knows how they'd actually behave in this situation, but perhaps some foresight will help.

Positive Role Models

The characters are mainly victims, and most are surprised at just how far things went, as if they were unable to control their attitudes and behavior.

Violence & Scariness

Psychological abuse. Prisoners are forced to pretend to have sex. Fighting. Beating with nightsticks. Screaming panic attacks. References to rape.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Prisoner forced to strip. Naked bottom shown. Sexual situations.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Uses of "f--k," "s--t," "bitch," "motherf----r," "bulls--t," "ass," "bastard," "humping," "cum," "goddamn," "Jesus Christ" (as an exclamation).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Frequent smoking. References to drinking and drugs.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that The Stanford Prison Experiment is a drama based on a famous real-life 1971 psychological experiment in which college students took on the roles of either prison guards or prisoners. The material is very strong, with psychological abuse, fighting, beating with nightsticks, screaming panic attacks, and references to rape. (It might have actually qualified as a "torture" movie if not for the fact that it's not "real.") Language is also strong, with many uses of "f--k," "s--t," and more. Prisoners are forced to pretend to have sex, and there are sexual references. Cigarette smoking is prevalent, and there are references to drinking and drugs. The story of the experiment is standard in most psychology textbooks today, and it serves as a fascinating cautionary tale, as well as a look at our inner workings and the way that power can influence us. Adults and older teens with strong stomachs will likely have a lot to talk about. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (1)
• Kids say (5)

Based on 1 parent review

True story. Good movie but not for youth

What's the story.

In August 1971, at Stanford University, Dr. Philip Zimbardo ( Billy Crudup ) prepares for a most unusual kind of psychological experiment. He recruits several male students to portray either prisoners or guards in a mock prison situation (a coin toss decides their role). A hallway and several offices are prepared as cells. The guards quickly adapt to their roles of authority -- aided by their uniforms, nightsticks, and sunglasses -- while the prisoners, wearing numbered gowns and stocking caps, become submissive. The experiment is planned to last two weeks, but it's only a matter of days before things escalate beyond expectations, and the guards start subjecting prisoners to more extreme methods of psychological torture.

Is It Any Good?

This film is a fascinating, revealing, upsetting experience. A movie about the real-life 1971 Stanford prison experiment could have been sadistic and unwatchable, but director Kyle Patrick Alvarez's clinical approach focuses on realism and psychological drama rather than on thrills. Alvarez doesn't try to professionally polish the prison setting; instead, it has a functional, homemade look that makes it feel more immediate. The way the characters wear their hair and clothes -- and they way they carry themselves -- contributes to what feels like an authentic period piece.

The ensemble performances are strong, with the actors uniformly selling the horrors of the grim material, especially former child actor Michael Angarano , who, for his guard role, decides to adopt a scary southern accent (like Strother Martin's in Cool Hand Luke ). Crudup is also terrific, balancing the scholarly importance of his study with its moral conundrums, as is Nelsan Ellis as a former real-life prisoner who consults.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about The Stanford Prison Experiment 's violence . How much actual violence is shown, and how much is in the form of threats or power struggles? What's the effect on the audience? What's the impact of media violence on kids?

What happens in the experiment? Why do the guards become so abusive and the prisoners so submissive? What does the experiment reveal about human nature/behavior?

In the beginning, most of the students say that they would choose to be a prisoner. Why is this? Would you choose to be a prisoner or a guard?

Does this experiment apply to bullies ? Is the abuse of authority and power similar or different?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 17, 2015
• On DVD or streaming : November 17, 2015
• Cast : Billy Crudup , Michael Angarano , Olivia Thirlby
• Director : Kyle Patrick Alvarez
• Inclusion Information : Gay directors, Latino directors, Multiracial directors, Female actors, Bisexual actors
• Studio : IFC Films
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 122 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : language including abusive behavior and some sexual references
• Last updated : June 19, 2023

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'The Stanford Prison Experiment': EW review

Senior Writer

In August 1971, professor Philip Zimbardo divided student volunteers into two factions—guards and inmates—and housed them in a mock prison in the basement of Stanford’s psychology department. Matters famously deteriorated, with the “guards” showing an alarming, sadistic enthusiasm for their task. The power dynamic is fascinating from a psych-textbook point of view, but as a film, this Billy Crudup-starring re-creation peaks early, then hobbles along. Fortunately, terrific performances from Ezra Miller as “Prisoner 8612” and Michael Angarano as an overlord keep you from hoping for an early release. B

Related Articles

Sundance Film Review: ‘The Stanford Prison Experiment’

Billy Crudup plays psychologist Philip Zimbardo in this by turns gripping, tedious and deliberately discomfiting re-creation of a notorious 1971 prison simulation.

By Justin Chang

Justin Chang

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An elaborate behavioral simulation spirals shockingly out of control — and to a lesser degree, so does the movie — in “ The Stanford Prison Experiment ,” a grimly staged dramatic reconstruction of Philip Zimbardo’s notorious 1971 scientific inquiry into the psychology of power and the human capacity for inflicting and accepting abuse. In an ambitious step up from his intimate character studies “Easier With Practice” and “C.O.G.,” director Kyle Patrick Alvarez commits to a fully immersive procedural approach that potently conveys the study’s lengthy duration and claustrophobic intensity, making for a viewing experience that is by turns gripping, tedious and deliberately discomfiting. But for all its bludgeoning effectiveness, the film also manages to be at once heavy-handed in some respects and annoyingly vague in others; although sure to have its defenders, it’s probably too strong a dose of foul medicine to catch on significantly with the public.

Perhaps performing their own sort of audience case study, the directors of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival have programmed a pair of pictures centered around the galvanizing work of two leading social psychologists: Stanley Milgram, the subject of Michael Almereyda’s provocatively form-busting biopic “Experimenter,” and Zimbardo, the not-quite-subject of Alvarez’s more conventional and confrontational third feature. While both scientists have drawn no shortage of criticism for performing controversial experiments that would almost certainly never be allowed today, history has largely vindicated the disturbing relevance of their discoveries about a person’s willingness to inflict pain, whether they’re merely following orders (the 1960s Milgram study) or acting out their designated roles (the Zimbardo experiment). And in the post-Abu Ghraib era — or indeed, any contemporary reality where a uniform and a weapon confer authority — the instructiveness of both films and the studies that inspired them should scarcely be underestimated.

Popular on Variety

Adapted from Zimbardo’s 2007 book “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil,” which revisited the discoveries of his famous experiment almost 40 years later, Tim Talbott’s screenplay wastes no time on character backstories or other contextual niceties, opening with the August 1971 auditioning process conducted by Stanford psychology professor Zimbardo ( Billy Crudup ) and his team of researchers. Eighteen male students are screened and selected to play either guards or inmates in the “Stanford County Jail,” the site of a two-week observational study for which they will receive $15 a day. The decision to throw the viewer right in is a shrewd one: We know nothing about these young men (not even their names), making each one that much more chilling a blank slate.

Initially, at least, they all seem like bright, good-humored guys, their laid-back speech and ’70s attire bespeaking a greater affinity with the era’s countercultural ethos than with any sort of fascist tendencies; when asked whether they would prefer to play guards or prisoners, nearly all of them choose the latter. But the power of an artificially imposed scenario, or something so simple as a change of wardrobe, turns out to be more suggestive than even Zimbardo imagines. On day one, the guards, wearing uniforms and intimidating shades, round up their prisoners in a series of mock arrests and lock them in the basement of Stanford’s Jordan Hall — a tight, airless hallway where a few empty classrooms have been converted into cells. There, they order the prisoners to strip naked, spray them with disinfectant, and force them into beige smocks and stocking caps. Even during these early and relatively benign preliminaries, something in the atmosphere has decisively shifted.

Among the guards’ strict orders: Prisoners must remain almost entirely silent, eat at designated mealtimes, and address every guard as “Mr. Correctional Officer.” Failure to obey will, of course, result in punishment. Perhaps the experiment’s most important ground rule is that participants are forbidden from physically assaulting each other, though that doesn’t stop the guards from barking orders at the top of their lungs, or slamming their nightsticks against the walls and cell bars (every loud crack registers with visceral force in the excellent sound design) in response to even the slightest infraction. And it doesn’t take long for the half-naked prisoners to protest when they’re regularly trotted out of their cells for any number of humiliating activities, or roused in the middle of the night for exhausting group exercises. Two of the more rebellious inmates, known only as No. 8612 (Ezra Miller) and No. 819 (Tye Sheridan), attempt to fight back and establish solidarity with their fellow inmates, and are forced to spend long periods of time in a dark closet referred to as “the hole” as a consequence.

“Aren’t these guys taking this a bit too seriously?” one guy asks at one point. It’s a question that rebounds uncomfortably not only on the prisoners, but also on Zimbardo and his collaborators, who watch on ever-present surveillance cameras as their simulation disintegrates, over just a few days, into a circus of degradation and a possibly enormous liability. The less controlled the experiment, of course, the more potentially revealing it becomes, underlining the notion that the study of behavior is worthless unless it can push into the more extreme gray zones of human experience.

Alvarez proves highly attentive to the tricky legal, ethical and scientific minefield that Zimbardo must navigate as various prisoners try to either escape or make their case before a faux parole board, at which point all parties involved seem to enter into an almost surreal realm of situational make-believe. That’s especially true of Jesse Fletcher (the excellent Nelsan Ellis, “Get On Up”), an ex-con who spent 17 years in San Quentin and is brought in to help enforce and legitimize the experiment. It’s also true of Zimbardo, who stubbornly presses on with the experiment and brooks no dissent from anyone — not even Christina Maslach (Olivia Thirlby), a much younger student-turned-love interest, whose words of protest fall on deaf ears.

Strictly on a technical level, Alvarez’s filmmaking is largely faultless here. D.p. Jas Shelton’s use of widescreen expertly captures the tense group dynamics at play and the often-violent choreography of bodies within the frame, and his camera manages to find dynamic angles on the action while crucially conveying the suffocating sense of a locked-in environment. (Anytime the film moves outside the mock-prison setting, sparely appointed by production designer Gary Barbosa, the sense of relief is almost physically palpable.) And Andrew Hewitt’s score, by turns churning and ominous, adds a necessary jolt of momentum that keeps the proceedings from becoming as clinical as the context might demand.

At a certain point, however, the combination of relentless forward drive and gruesomely fastidious detail, while audacious and admirable in theory, begins to pay dwindling returns in a picture that feels rather longer than its 122-minute running time. Not unlike the study from which it derives its title, “The Stanford Prison Experiment” is an endurance test by design; to say that it’s often hell to sit through may be more of an objective observation than a legitimate complaint. The problem is not that this film is upsetting (it should be), but that it ultimately seems more interested in, and skilled at, dispensing regular shocks than fresh insights.

Alvarez himself has demonstrated a certain playful, almost experimental mindset toward his previous male protagonists (the relationally stunted hero of “Easier With Practice,” the young man torn between homosexuality and Christianity in “C.O.G.”), placing them in a series of increasingly uncomfortable scenarios, and monitoring their emotional progress with a detachment that didn’t necessarily preclude affection. He elicits excellent performances here from a sprawling ensemble with no shortage of standouts: Miller, unsurprisingly, shows a terrifying level of commitment to his role as one of the experiment’s most vocal protestors, while Michael Angarano is ferocious as the lead guard, who plays his designated role with far more sadistic abandon than anyone anticipated. And Chris Sheffield is quietly moving as a gentle prisoner whose principled attempt to hold onto one last shred of his identity becomes a powerfully understated act of defiance.

In the end, however, the picture seems stranded between two irreconcilable impulses: to individuate its characters, but also to treat them as abstract representatives of an all-too-corruptible humanity. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the depiction of Zimbardo himself, who became as dangerously caught up in the experiment as anyone else involved; yet in the aftermath of the whole affair (which was cut short after just six days), he crucially subjected all participants, himself included, to hours of psychological debriefing and a necessary moral reckoning.

The closing titles extol Zimbardo as a landmark figure in psychology — an interpretation that’s almost entirely at odds with Crudup’s performance, which presents the scientist as a nearly cardboard villain: callous, arrogant and almost criminally reckless, a one-man study in authoritarianism run amok. “We have become part of this experiment, whether we like it or not,” one of his collaborators opines, needlessly articulating a point that, like too much in “The Stanford Prison Experiment,” will have long become obvious to anyone who’s been paying attention.

Reviewed at Sundance Film Festival (competing), Jan. 26, 2015. Running time: 122 MIN.

• Production: A Sandbar Pictures & Abandon Features presentation in association with Coup d’Etat Films, Vineyard Point Prods. (International sales: UTA, Los Angeles.) Produced by Brent Emery, Lizzie Friedman, Karen Lauder, Greg Little, Lauren Bratman. Executive producers, Katie Leary, Bob Leary, Brian Geraghty. Co-producer, Rachel Lauder. Co-executive producers, Michael Paesano, Eric Alini.
• Crew: Directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez. Screenplay, Tim Talbott, based on the book “The Lucifer Effect” by Philip Zimbardo. Camera (color), Jas Shelton; editor, Fernando Collins; music, Andrew Hewitt; production designer, Gary Barbosa; art director, Andres Cubillan; set decorator, Sandra Skora; costume designer, Lisa Tomczeszyn; sound, Reza Moosavi; supervising sound editor/re-recording mixer, Martyn Zub; stunt coordinator, Lou Simon; associate producers, Laurence Duccheschi, Chris Heltzel, Adam Shazar; assistant director, Jacques Terblanche; casting, Angela Demo, Barbara McCarthy.
• With: Billy Crudup, Michael Angarano, Moises Arias, Nicholas Braun, Gaius Charles, Keir Gilchrist, Ki Hong Lee, Thomas Mann, Ezra Miller, Logan Miller, Tye Sheridan, Johnny Simmons, James Wolk, Olivia Thirlby, Nelsan Ellis, Matt Bennett, Jesse Carere, Brett Davern, James Frecheville, Miles Heizer, Jack Kilmer, Callan McAuliffe, Benedict Samuel, Chris Sheffield, Harrison Thomas.

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THE STANFORD PRISON EXPERIMENT Review | Sundance 2015

Absolute power corrupts absolutely in Kyle Patrick Alvarez's unsettling drama based on the infamous experiment.

Perhaps just as famous (or infamous) as Dr. Stanley Milgram’s “Obedience Experiment” is Dr. Philip Zimbardo’s “Stanford Prison Experiment.”  Both experiments deal with the power of authority figures to coerce people into doing awful things.  Both movies shake our confidence in how we would behave under the same circumstances, but while Experimenter struggles to find the drama in the story of a scientist and his well-known experiment, Kyle Patrick Alvarez ’s The Stanford Prison Experiment has the benefit of a narrative, and even thought we know the outcome, he and his outstanding cast manage to move the characters and their story from a novelty to a nightmare.

In August 1971, Dr. Philip Zimbardo ( Billy Crudup ) and his team put out a newspaper ad looking for young men to join a two-week experiment where they were randomly divided into prisoners and guards.  A floor in Jordan Hall on the Stanford campus is converted into a “prison” where offices are turned into cells, a broom closet is used for solitary confinement, and the majority of the prison is a hallway.  There are only two rules: 1) Guards cannot physically harm prisoners; and 2) once the experiment begins, it can no longer be referred to as an experiment.  It is now reality, and that reality quickly became horrifying as the guards become sadistic and find ways to assert their authority through verbal abuse, forced exercise, and humiliation.  Zimbardo and his team watch in morbid fascination as power corrupts the guards and the prisoners’ psyches break.

Alvarez cleverly starts his film with comedy with the participants seeing the experiment as a game/role-play and an easy way to make $15 a day.  The audience laughs along with the participants—all of who are unnamed and identified as either a guard or by a prison number.  But Zimbardo and his team know that the experiment has an unsettling thesis, which is to observe how stripping away people’s individuality and installing a powerful institution can change an individual’s behavior.  All it takes is a little imagination and some costumes and grown men will crumble.  And even though the experiment spiraled out of control at a surprising rate, the director is patient with his story.  Presumably, Alvarez knows most of his audience is aware of how the experiment turned out, so he chooses to slowly grind us down like the poor students who were randomly chosen to be inmates.

We have to soak in not only the relationship between the guards and prisoners, but also Zimbardo and his experiment, who unwittingly becomes a participant.  He identifies himself as the “superintendent”, and grows monomaniacal in pushing for the experiment to continue even though it’s clear that his thesis has been proven.  Zimbardo wants to see how far he can peek into the horrors of human behavior and as a result denies his complicity.  We eventually feel as trapped as the prisoners since Zimbardo should function as the failsafe and instead becomes delusional in his belief that everything is in control.

The film is further supported by its tremendous collection of rising stars. Crudup might be the biggest name in the cast (and he’s great as always), but the supporting cast features a fine collection of up-and-comers, and their performances show you why they should be on your radar.  Ezra Miller , Tye Sheridan , Johnny Simmons are tremendous as prisoners who think they can break the system only to experience an equal, opposite, and devastating reaction from the guards.  Michael Angarano happily chews the scenery as a student who takes to playing a guard like a shark to blood.  The experiment is designed to strip away at the individual identity of both the prisoners and the guards, but the actors keep us clinging to the remaining shreds of their personalities.  We don’t know the characters’ names, but we care about all of them.

Alvarez took a direct experiment with a well-known conclusion, and still managed to make it captivating.  So it’s disappointing that he undermines his confident direction by tacking on a completely unnecessary post-script that explains everything we just saw.  The story has a clear endpoint, but then we get debriefed for the final three minutes like we couldn’t figure out what to feel or think.

The Stanford Prison Experiment endures because we know exactly what to feel and think.  We feel disturbed and we rethink our identity.  We know this before we even step into the theater, and The Stanford Prison Experiment succeeds because it brings our fears to life, and while Alvarez may have wanted to leave his audience with a breather, his film works far better when it’s making us gasp at humanity’s fragile morality.

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Sundance 2015 review – The Stanford Prison Experiment: notorious behaviour test becomes masterful film

In 1971, students at Stanford university were divided into guards and prisoners in a mock jail, and quickly spiralled into sadism and subordination. Adapting it for the screen, Kyle Patrick Alvarez cranks up the claustrophobia to nightmarish levels

I n 1971, Stanford psychology professor Philip Zimbardo wondered if he could create a college activity more detrimental than majoring poetry. (I joke.) But he did transform the basement of a university building into a make-believe prison with the intention of monitoring the effects of unearned authority, depersonalisation and how institutional settings can alter “normal” people.

Offering quick money to college students during the summer (when the campus was mostly empty) a random coin flip determined whether the kids would be prisoners or guards. The experiment was supposed to last two weeks but was cancelled after six days due to alarming way the subjects internalized their roles. Potentially more frightening was how Zimbardo himself had been drawn into the pageantry, and had an outsider not poked her nose in, it might have continued to a more tragic end.

Director Kyle Patrick Alvarez deserves all the praise in the world for the way he cranks up this pressure cooker script. The Stanford Prison Experiment begins with giggles but ends in full psychological break. Alvarez shoots in close-up, allowing you to see the slow shift as these characters begin to slide into their new personas. From the comfort of the audience you can say “this would never happen to me,” but the shooting style sells how the claustrophobia and confusion can so easily lead to a break from reality. After what feels like a long amount of time in a typical movie, Alvarez gets a great, uneasy laugh by flashing the words “Day Two” on the screen.

Two of the kids represent different extremes of social science. Michael Angarano, small in stature, turns into “John Wayne”, a possible sadist, once he gets his baton and sunglasses. It’s worth noting that none of the kids said they wanted the responsibility of being a guard. “Nobody likes guards,” was the vibe during pre-screening. Ezra Miller, with his goofy grin, is the first prisoner to push back against the mental cruelty. But since he does not bend, he is soon broken. After a genuine freak-out he is allowed to leave the experiment. Other prisoners who can’t take the pressure may have waited too long – it is implied they have succumbed to their roles so completely they forget they can demand to leave.

Billy Crudup is marvelous as the unknowable Zimbardo. His intentions are ambiguous, but we accept that surely he must be benevolent. After all, he works at Stamford and he and his colleagues keep referring to this as “important work.” In reality, he was commissioned to study prisons by the US Navy, but this fact is left out of the movie. Sitting alone in the dark of his office watching the prison on a video feed he eventually looks more like a sick voyeur than a professor.

I’ve read a lot about this experiment in the past, but unlike with the work of Stanley Milgram I never quite understood how the subjects didn’t just walk away when things got too extreme. Alvarez does a masterful job of showing how, yes, most recognised that what they were doing was fake, but that didn’t make the emotions any less real. This dreamlike discomfort engulfs the film. One outdoor scene in fresh air toward the end of the picture is completely jarring – back in that windowless hallway, it feels like another world.

Nota bene: The Stanford Prison Experiment played at Sundance, and sometimes small changes are made to films in between their festival run and their public debut. There is a coda to this picture that is one of the more tone deaf bits of filmmaking I’ve seen in quite some time. For five minutes, characters address the camera and barf obvious conclusions at you. Just like someone came to Zimbardo and shook him out of the experiment, I hope someone talks sense to Alvarez and gets him to snip or at least amend this unnecessary appendix.

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Summary What happens when a college psych study goes shockingly wrong? In 1971 Stanford University professor Dr. Philip Zimbardo (Billy Crudup) cast 24 student volunteers as prisoners and guards in a simulated jail to examine the source of abusive behavior in the prison system. The results astonished the world, as participants went from middle-c ... Read More

Written By : Tim Talbott, Philip Zimbardo

The Stanford Prison Experiment

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Review: ‘The Stanford Prison Experiment’ plays warden to chilling effect

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Much of what happens during “The Stanford Prison Experiment” seems just too unbelievable to be true. Sadly, and fascinatingly, director Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s film depicts the real events of a 1971 study on authority and situational behavior done by Dr. Philip Zimbardo (Billy Crudup).

Young college men, paid $15 a day for two weeks, are divided into guards and prisoners and housed in an office hallway doctored with plywood for their experimental role play, which quickly, and violently, turns all too real.

But worse than any physical harm is the psychological and emotional manipulation, spearheaded by a swaggering guard nicknamed John Wayne (a drawling, ferocious Michael Angarano). Forcing the prisoners to participate in arbitrary, byzantine and increasingly sadistic rituals, he has them fully under his control, a feat the other guards attempt to replicate, only stoking the growing rebellion.

The researchers come to realize that the experiment is no experiment at all, but a demonstration of their own power, and they like playing warden. Alvarez captures the sickly green and dingy gray environment, and even though he emphasizes the claustrophobic nature of the stuffy hallway, brings movement and dynamism to the space.

The cast of ascendant Hollywood talent includes Tye Sheridan, Ezra Miller, Thomas Mann, James Wolk and Olivia Thirlby, and the ensemble shines in demonstrating the complexities of the individuals who either endure or exploit this system of abusive power dynamics. Though a period piece, Alvarez’s film remains relevant to the contemporary conversation about prison reform.

------------

“The Stanford Prison Experiment.”

MPAA rating : R for language, abusive behavior, sexual references.

Running time : 2 hours, 2 minutes.

Playing : ArcLight Hollywood.

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The stanford prison experiment (2015) : movie review.

Synopsis: In 1971, psychologist Dr. Philip Zimbardo led a team of researchers in conducting an experiment which involved 18 volunteer college students who were randomly selected to play the roles of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison inside the university. The experiment, which was originally intended to run for two weeks sought to understand the power struggle between prisoners and prison officers, was shut down after only six days when the students quickly assimilated to their roles which resulted in power tripping, abuses and depression among the participants.

Is it possible to remain angry for the duration of an entire film? I discovered that it was after I wrestled with varying degrees of rage for the 2 hour and 2 minute run of the film. The problem was, I didn’t really know who I was angry at. Was it Zimbardo and the research team, who despite seeing the tendency of the subjects to abuse their roles, allowed them to go overboard and even goaded the guards to enforce stricter and more creative measures to keep the prisoners in line? Was it the guards who degraded and verbally abused the prisoners and treated them as less than human, having fun while they were doing it? Was it the prisoners for allowing the abuse to continue without speaking out and going against the system?

While I was angry at the injustices suffered by the subjects for the duration of the prematurely terminated experiment, I also understood how it could have been viewed as a success. The subjects fully assimilated to their roles so quickly that it gave a glimpse at how behaviors are influenced by the perception of power. However, I was not fully convinced that all of the subjects did not suffer any lasting trauma from the study from the many variables that the experiments failed to take into account.

First off, the researchers did not profile the subjects properly and only assigned the roles based on a coin flip. In real life, applicants for the position of correction officer are profiled intensively before they are assigned to guard hardened criminals in prison. Secondly, the conditions in which the subjects were incarcerated were also questionable. In a real prison, most of the inmates have committed actual crimes putting them in a different frame of mind than innocent teenagers who are being asked to feel remorse over a manufactured criminal history. I was gritting my teeth the whole time Prisoner 1037 was being interviewed for parole and he was being abused and reprimanded for “crimes” that he committed. The insults were directed at the character of the prisoner but the actual student was reeling from the abusive language.

Another red flag was that every time there were threats of legality raised, the researchers were very quick to silence the subjects and willingly released them provided they sign waivers that cleared the researchers of any liability. Their reaction, for me was a sign that they too understood that they were doing something wrong but they chose to ignore it because they were too absorbed by the potential of the study to stop at midpoint.

I was completely blown away by how convicingly Bill Crudup portrayed his role as the psychologist who, himself, got too involved in his experiment that he failed to see the magnitude of the damage it was doing to the subjects. I felt for all of the prisoners — most especially 8612 (Ezra Miller), 819 (Tye Sheridan) and 2093 (Chris Sheffield). The culture shock and the bullying broke those who were perceived to be the strongest and the rebels while it compelled the meekest to test his own convictions to stand up to the abuse.

In the movie, Zimbardo described “John Wayne” as remarkable and I agree that actor Michael Angarano made the character come to life because of his creativity and his dedication with his role. While the prisoners had ringleaders and followers, the prison officers were also the same with John Wayne paving the path for the rest to follow.  In this sense, dominance and submission were on full display. There were also those who felt strong objection to what was happening but remained silent because of fear. What if they had spoken up? What if they acted on the abuse? The study would have turned out quite differently.

All in all, The Stanford Prison Experiment was a remarkable film because like the participants of the experiment, it immersed the audiences in the ordeal of the students even as mere spectators of a film inspired by actual events. It raised many questions about morality and ethics and made the audience reflect on their own capabilities and limits. Personally, I cannot pass judgment on anyone involved in the study because I do not know how much of the film was accurate but I must say that in order to have been part of it entails a truly strong stomach. Still, based on this film alone, I would surmise that no one came out of that experiment unscathed. Everyone was a victim, of others, of themselves — it was a torture on the conscience during and even years after the experiment. This much, I am sure of.

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Movie Review: Stanford Prison Experiment

If you’re not familiar with the Stanford Prison Experiment, you’ll be thrilled and riveted by the film of the same name. If you know about the infamous experiment, the film, while still engaging and disturbing, might leave you wanting more.

The Stanford Prison Experiment  depicts Phil Zimbardo’s 1973 Stanford University psychology experiment that went horribly awry in a matter of days…hours really. He and his graduate students recruited a group of college-age boys and randomly assigned them identities of guards and prisoners and shoved them in a make-shift prison in one of the University’s basements. Within hours, the guards began to exhibit uncharacteristically violent behavior and, perhaps most surprising of all, the prisoners bowed to it. You can read more about the experiment here .

Kyle Patrick Alvarez constructs a cinematically claustrophobic account of the events, giving viewers only limited glimpses into how much time has actually passed. The greatest shock is that so much violence and abuse happened on the first day (there was an audible gasp from the audience when the Day 1 title card appeared). The film also benefits from strong performances from a group of, largely, unrecognizable young actors. Their work here will no doubt go a long way in boosting many of their careers. If you’re a fan of the television series,  Friday Night Lights , you’ll be surprised to see Gaius Charles (Smash) getting some series dramatic work. Michael Angarano  (below) gives a particularly powerful performance as one of the guards who revels in his duties.

While there have been other films loosely based on these events, this is the definitive account. Despite the relative familiarity of the events, the film should still leave audiences amazed that something like this could have gone on. As much as I enjoyed the film, it feels slightly lacking, particularly in terms of character development around Zimbardo and his colleagues. While the experiment was to test the effects of imprisonment on prisoners and guards, there seems to be more behind Zimbardo’s participation. Billy Crudup ‘s performance hints at a deeper, darker obsession, but Alvarez doesn’t really explore this.

The film concludes with shots of the prisoners and guards reflecting on their experiences. They’re insightful, humorous, and begin to get at the real psychology behind the experiment. But they might also cause us to turn inward and question how we might act in similar situations. We might also explore the current practices in which we’re engaged that future viewers might look back on and wonder how we got away with it.

The Stanford Prison Experiment (122 mins.) is rated R for language, including abusive behavior and some sexual references and is in theaters…if you’re lucky.

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The Stanford Prison Experiment

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Billy Crudup

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Making a Drama out of a Crisis: The Curious Case of the Stanford Prison Study

In his new book, Incarceration Games: A History of Role-Play in Psychology, Prisons, and Performance , by Stephen Scott-Bottoms offers a fresh perspective on some of America’s most notorious social psychology experiments. Incarceration Games  is now available in hardcover, paperback, and ebook. There will be a virtual book launch on Thursday, May 23rd. Register at Eventbrite . 

“People are fascinated with the Stanford prison study,” Philip Zimbardo tells me reflectively, “but in reality, in the real world, almost no-one gives a shit about prisons.” He is standing in the doorway of his San Francisco home, bidding me farewell, and this thought has just hit him: “Prisons in and of themselves are not a topic that anybody is curious about, but they are interested in the drama of the prison study. For me, it’s a curious dichotomy.”

It’s February 2020, just before Covid imprisoned us all, and I’ve just been interviewing this famous psychologist for a book I’m researching. It has become apparent, during this conversation, that Zimbardo is still hurt and upset by some very personal accusations made against him in the previous couple of years. The writers Ben Blum and Thibault LeTexier have both claimed publicly that Zimbardo and his co-researchers told flat-out lies about the outcomes of their notorious, 1971 prison experiment at Stanford University. These revelations, which have prompted a predictable Twitter-storm of righteous indignation, are dependent on LeTexier’s rather cursory reading of archival materials relating to the experiment. Yet as Zimbardo quite reasonably points out, he had made those very materials available for public consultation in the interests of transparency. For him, at least, there were no lies to conceal. Moreover, he notes, Blum and LeTexier had cried “gotcha” without making any attempt to relate their critiques back to the subject of prisons. The veracity or otherwise of the prison experiment itself had apparently become more newsworthy than the bleak realities it had set out to dramatize. Hence Zimbardo’s parting observation to me.

His reference to “the drama of the prison study” was also, no doubt, informed by his awareness that I am a drama professor—not a psychologist. My own interest in the Stanford Prison Experiment arises from the fact that this was essentially an exercise in improvised role-play. A volunteer cast of student-age young men were arbitrarily allocated to roles as prisoners and guards in a mocked-up prison setting, and asked to play those parts for a watchful audience of psychologists. What happened next has become the material of popular myth, as the guards allegedly became more “brutal” toward the prisoners than anyone had anticipated. There were, however, no independent observers present to witness these events. The only accounts we have of this intimate drama have been provided by the psychologists who staged it. From the perspective of a theatre historian, there are obvious problems with this—whether or not anybody lied. It’s like having a playwright’s description of their own play, but no access to the play itself. So I’ve been scouring the archives, and interviewing surviving participants, in the hope of reconstructing these events from a more objective point of view. Somewhat remarkably, nobody has ever tried to do this before. 

My hope, in conducting this re-examination, is that a fresh account might help to resolve the “curious dichotomy” that Zimbardo points out. For if, as he suggests, people remain fascinated by the “drama” of the Stanford Prison Experiment, that is because he has always told the story of this study in bold, primary colours—using pleasingly direct language. Take Zimbardo’s book-length account, The Lucifer Effect (2007), with its knowingly populist subtitle: How Good People Turn Evil . This is not exactly scientific language, but it neatly captures his core theoretical claim about the study: under certain situational pressures, he argues, even the best of us may end up acting abominably. And maybe that’s true. Yet Zimbardo’s evidence for this claim rests on a specific experimental situation—an attempt to simulate the power dynamics of a prison. This is the bit that tends to get fudged or ignored in pop-culture retellings of the story, because prisons—as Zimbardo suggests—are not something that most of us want to think about for long. Real prisons are more mundane, more complicated, and more oppressive than any psychology experiment could hope to approximate. So instead, oftentimes, the Stanford study is presented as proving some generalized point about “human nature” (whatever that is).

This is, however, to miss the point. The allegedly abusive behavior of the Stanford guards has always been presented by the researchers as a consequence of a specific, situational phenomenon—namely, the structural power imbalance between guards and prisoners that exists in any prison setting. Zimbardo’s study has often resonated with prison professionals for precisely this reason—because they recognize the problem identified. Institutional conditions can, indeed, result in staff adopting a casually dehumanizing attitude toward the inmates in their charge—unless care is taken to ensure the contrary. Crucially, though, such care is often taken. Not all prisons are the same.

As criminologist Alison Liebling once put it to me, every prison is its own social experiment. The specifics of a building’s size and architecture, of its population’s daily routines, of its governor’s disciplinary philosophy—all these variables and more will impact on the conduct and wellbeing of inmates and staff. Liebling’s own work, as Director of the Prisons Research Centre at Cambridge University, has demonstrated this point convincingly. Her MQPL questionnaire ( Measuring the Quality of Prison Life ) has been used extensively, in a wide range of institutions, to gather comparative data on the day-to-day experiences of those who live and work in them. This has enabled Liebling and her colleagues to establish clear correlations between—for example—the perceived harshness of prison regimes and the rate of suicide among prisoners.  In crude terms, you are demonstrably more likely to kill yourself if you are held in an institution that exhibits poor moral performance . So Zimbardo was onto something when he highlighted situational conditions over individual disposition. Rather than simply containing “bad apples”, some prisons are indeed “bad barrels”.

But if this is the case, an obvious question arises. What were the specific situational conditions that resulted in such negative outcomes for the Stanford Prison Experiment? What exactly made this simulation such a bad barrel for those subjected to it? Zimbardo and his colleagues have never been very clear on the details here—apparently because their orientation as psychologists was towards extrapolating generalizing claims about psychological phenomena, rather than honing in on specifics . So perhaps this is where a theatre historian like myself might have a role to play. In theatre studies, the critic’s orientation is usually toward the specific. Why, we might ask, was this production of Hamlet received so differently by audiences than that one? How exactly did actors, scripts, sets, costumes, etc., function together to create meaning?  Or, more pertinently here, why is it that one iteration of an improvised role-playing game might result in very different outcomes from another? As any drama teacher knows, improv scenarios can spin off in all sorts of directions, as the various personalities in the room react spontaneously to the developing situation—and to each other. The basic rules of the game may stay the same, but the players’ game tactics will always be different—which is, of course, why good games are worth playing repeatedly. As for bad games, which turn out to be ethically flawed, we might just need a historian to piece together the details of what went wrong.

It’s April 2024. Covid is an uncomfortable memory. Sitting in front of me, on my desk, is an advance copy of my new book, Incarceration Games: A History of Role-Play in Psychology, Prisons and Performance . As the subtitle suggests, I’ve worked hard to resolve Zimbardo’s curious dichotomy. The Stanford experiment sits at the heart of the book, but my story also tracks backwards as far as the 1930s, and forwards as far as the 2000s, to examine other experiments—and other role-playing games—in which the coercion, manipulation, or even rehabilitation of prisoners was an overt or covert concern. The jacket blurbs tell me that “ Incarceration Games moves well beyond ‘gotcha’ sensibility … providing a refreshing, novel perspective” (Michael Pettit); and that “by bringing to bear methods familiar to theatre historians,” I have written “a fascinating, readable, rewarding book” (Mike Sell). I will certainly take the compliments. It remains to be seen, though, whether these tales of situational experimentation will inspire readers to give a shit about prisons.

Books Mentioned In This Post

Incarceration Games

Bodies on the Front Lines: Feminism and Performance Activism

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The Stanford Prison Experiment

• In 1971, twenty-four male students are selected to take on randomly assigned roles of prisoners and guards in a mock prison situated in the basement of the Stanford psychology building.
• The Stanford prison experiment was ostensibly a psychological study of human responses to captivity and its behavioral effects on both authorities and inmates in prison. It was conducted in 1971 by a team of researchers led by Philip Zimbardo of Stanford University. Undergraduate volunteers played the roles of both guards and prisoners living in a mock prison in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. Within one day things got out of hand, and the "guards" used unmonitored brute force on many of the inmates. The experiment was cancelled after 6 days instead of the planned 14.

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